How many CC trade lines do you have? What is the perfect number?

[dodgerslv]

i have the ones down on my siggy plus 5 more (Macys, Dillards, Walmart, Chevron/Tex and Merrick Bank). I really have no use for the chevron and dillards cards now (not used them in months). Only reason i keep Merrick is for the free TU fico score and they actually have given me 2 auto increases in the last 4 months.

[CardsLifeLine]

I have total of 26 open credit lines ... I can write my name with all card plastics ...

[zeusta20]

I currently have 6. Me personally, would probably go no higher than 8. I'd like to stay at 6, but there's still one more out there that I'm waiting to app for which is the BCE. And I say no more than 8 because most likely another card is going to come along and catch my attention with the rewards.lol. So that gives me one more leeway of a car....haha

[zeusta20]

carD*...oops.lol.

[visorboy1974]

10 open, 17 closed

[matrix23]

Ideally I want all the ones listed in my wallet in my sig, plus maybe one more BofA, since I also bank with them.  Ideally I would like 50K of personal credit spread between 4 cards.  Also, I would probably focus all my spending on the Chase SP and Freedom due to be loving UR points.

[dddewdrop]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@dddewdrop wrote:

I don't close accounts unless they have an AF.  I'l never use the Dell account again but it has a fat CL that helps with UTL.  Same with CapOne and Merrick.

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sounds smart.

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But keeping them open can hurt DTI calculations, about as much as it helps utl...

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   Can you explain that please. Do you mean that open accounts with balances can hurt DTI? If I have a credit card account with a $1 balance with a credit limit of $1000 dollars and I pay the $1 and close the account, what happens? Well as I understand it, my credit limit for that account goes from $1000 to $0. My credit limit overall goes  down by $1000 dollars. I don't believe that having a credit limit that I am not utilising counts towards debt in a DTI calculation. Maybe I am wrong though cause I am not an accounting person really. 

[dddewdrop]

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@Revelate wrote:

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@dddewdrop wrote:

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@tcbofade wrote:

Oh heck, I lose count...the number I remember is that between DW and I, we have 43 active credit card accounts.

No, that isn't a typo. 

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Hmm. Yeah I guess you have enough to qualify. Credit Karma models put the optimal number at 21+ so you should each be good there..

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CK models their data on the relative scores they have.

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   My comment on CK was basically to poke fun at how their models depart from reality. Reality in this context being the actual Fair Isaac FICO model.

[Anonymous]

It will affect your DTI ratio ONLY if you have a balance on the card.

If you have no balance on an open account, you owe no debt to that creditor for that account, which means it will not affect your DTI ratio.

Refer to this link on DTI calculations:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-income_ratio

[dddewdrop]

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@Anonymous wrote:

It will affect your DTI ratio ONLY if you have a balance on the card.

If you have no balance on an open account, you owe no debt to that creditor for that account, which means it will not affect your DTI ratio.

Refer to this link on DTI calculations:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-income_ratio

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   Yeah. That is what I figured. When I was recommending to that person to close a couple card I qualified it by saying IF he was carrying no balance. If he was carrying balances then DTI and Util% are affected.